The Invisible Hand of Fate
"The Invisible Hand of Fate" is the third episode in the third season of The Venture Bros. Plot After slipping in his bathroom and falling, Billy Quizboy recovers several lost memories. Billy is about to shout accusations at Pete White when White knocks Billy unconscious and phones Brock. A flashback story then begins, showing Billy on a game show called "Quizboys" hosted by Pete White. White wears makeup and a wig to hide his albinism. Billy writes down an incorrect answer but it is changed to the correct answer before his turn, thus winning him the game. The other contestant accuses Billy of cheating, which blows open Billy and White's winning scheme to the public. In the dressing room after the game, White reveals his albinism to Billy. Pete White travels with Billy as Billy competes in a series of "underground" quiz challenges to finance a roadtrip to the Venture compound with the hopes of gaining employment as a scientist and a lab assistant. They arrive just as the OSI is hauling away a clearly disturbed Myra Brandish while Dr. Venture speaks with an agent. (Clearly visible are a baby Dean and Hank in the background, being held by H.E.L.P.eR.) After being denied jobs, White enlists Billy in what they believe is another quiz contest but is actually a dog fight. Billy loses the fight along with an eye, a hand, and all of his previous winnings (since White had placed a bet on Billy). Brock Samson and Colonel Hunter Gathers, two agents of OSI, have been tracking Billy Quizboy. They provide Billy with a robotic hand and eyeball in a plan to infiltrate the Guild of Calamitous Intent. A Professor Fantomos at "State University" is believed to be recruiting students into the Guild. Billy is enrolled in Fantomos's class and finds that most of his classmates have major deformities. Fantomos asks Billy to assist him with an experiment, because of an impressive essay Billy had turned in. Unbeknown to his professor, OSI had cheated for Billy and had Stephen Hawking write the paper for him. Fantomos is attempting to use a nuclear-powered machine to grow new limbs, as he was born with deformed, shrunken arms and legs and uses robotic appendages that fit over his real ones. The experiment goes awry when Billy has to shut the machine down using a technique he should know, but doesn't because he cheated on his paper, and Billy's electronic eye is ripped from his head. Professor Fantomos's once deformed limbs enlarge and become invisible, gaining the power to kill through touch. As punishment for their failure, Colonel Gathers is transferred to Guam and Brock Samson is apparently reassigned to be Dr. Venture's bodyguard. Billy's memory is wiped by OSI and Brock delivers Billy to a disheveled Pete White. The post-credits scene returns to the present as Billy awakens and angrily attacks Brock, prompting White to smash him over the head a second time. Cultural references *According to Jackson Publick, Fantomos is based on Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre's creation Fantômas.http://jacksonpublick.livejournal.com/22251.html?thread=2418667#t2418667 In addition, the concept of a heriditary costumed identity is a further reference to The Phantom, the basis for Phantom Limb's costume and whom Fantomos's presumed father loosely resembles. *When Pete White calls Brock on the phone, he identifies himself as "Casper" and informs "Goldilocks" that "Little Nemo has fallen out of bed". * The SPHINX jets scrambling off the heli-carrier resemble the Dassault Mirage III and IV. *A group of OSI agents strongly resemble the Village People, which Hunter remarks upon bitterly. *One of the OSI agents Hunter and Brock talks to is a man in a sailor outfit code-named 'Shore Leave', a parody of the G.I. Joe character Shipwreck. *These agents compare Hunter and Brock to Wayland Flowers and his puppet named Madame. *Race Bannon from Jonny Quest is seen in the OSI building apparently working as a torturer. *The OSI officer calls Brock "Sancho Panza" as an insult, telling him that his "windmill-chasing days are over". *When in the OSI building, Brock and Hunter encounter an agent that appears to be a parody of Jasper Sitwell from the Iron Man comics of the 60's. *The OSI fight scene, theme song and main enemy (Cobra/Sphinx) are based on the '80s cartoon series G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, as is the tendency for outlandish costumes. *At the first underground quiz tournament Billy takes part in, one of the contestants is wearing a Watchmen tank top (although this could be a Revenge of the Nerds reference as Booger wore a similar shirt in that film). *The OSI theme features references to the famous photographs of South Vietnam general Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing a prisoner and Lynndie England abusing Abu Ghraib prisoners. *Billy's cheating on the game show are a reference to the 1957 quiz show scandals. *In the OSI fight scene, the enemy force, Sphinx, use a hovering personnel carrier, which greatly resembles and is a reference to White Base from Mobile Suit Gundam. *Professor Fantomos reveals his shriveled arm inside a prosthetic much as the traitorous character Benny in the movie Total Recall reveals his deformity in order show that he, too, is a mutant. The central theme of that movie is lost and found memories, just like this episode. *Professor Fantomos tells Billy that as the roommate of a suicide, he is automatically granted a 4.0 for the semester. This is a common urban legend on college campuses. *The costumes that the OSI wear bear a striking resemblance to the Agents of SHIELD from Marvel comics. * Hunter's reference to the Bilderberg Group deciding to bring down the Berlin Wall at their last meeting would place this episode between May 15 and November 9 of 1989. *Besides being a reference to Phantom Limb and constantly said during the episode, the title The Invisible Hand of Fate is also a reference to B-Movie Manos: The Hands of Fate. Connections to other episodes *Colonel Gathers makes several references to his desire for a sex-change operation, which happens in the episode "Assassinanny 911". He sarcastically proclaims "and I wanted to be born with big beautiful tits!" and dresses as a female cheerleader. *Professor Impossible's name is shown being removed from the door of the university's science department. Stephen Colbert, the voice of Professor Impossible, chose not to return to the show this season. Publick further stated that Professor Impossible's title being removed was not his way of showing disdain for Colbert leaving the show and that an early draft of the script contained a scene where it is revealed that Professor Impossible was forced to leave due to a scandal involving a student named Sally. *A young Doctor Girlfriend is a student of professor Fantomos. *A pre-villain Sergeant Hatred, named Sgt. Haine (Haine is French for hatred), is seen at the end of the episode as one of Brock's superiors in OSI. He also dons a Guild of Calamitous Intent ring in the end montage. *Steve Summers is briefly seen walking through an OSI base shot *Professor Fantomos asks Billy if his mechanical hand was designed by Mike Sorayama, from the episode "Past Tense" and comments on him being his favorite pupil. *In "Victor. Echo. November." the Monarch relates to JollyRancher82 the origins of Phantom Limb and mentions the muscle growth accelerator. Though his imagined depiction was less flattering, he essentially got all the details right, including Billy's involvement. A few other connections to that episode include #21's belief that Billy won "a bunch of money" on the gameshow "Card Sharks" and Billy mentioning he did not know where he got his mechanical hand from. Production notes *This was the first episode produced for season three, even though it aired third. *The blackboard in Professor Fantomos's classroom has "V.B. S3" (V'enture '''B'ros. 'S'eason '''3) as a portion of an equation. *Master Billy Quizboy's last name is revealed to be "Whalen" in this episode. *Kimson Albert's thematic nickname in the credits this episode is "The Nozzle." References The Invisible Hand of Fate